This blog has been established for the participants in the Managers in e-Learning LearnScope '07 team to map their journey, share their reflections and any other interesting learning along the way.

28 September 2007

Union using Second Life

Terry Lawler, our NT participant, has just forwarded this article on IBM employees using Second Life to protest. And we're just starting to talk about it (it is IBM mind you) but perhaps this is a sign of how protests will be done here in Australia in the future ? Keep watching ...

"More than 1’850 -real- people protested behind their computers in over 30 countries to show solidarity with IBM Italy workers. The protest took place at 7 IBM locations, and in particular at IBM Italia and the IBM Business Centre in Second Life. Many Italian IBM workers joined the event after work, from 7pm to 10pm Rome, Italy time.

It was reported that Second Life was having some technical difficulties, which is why we believe we could have reached an even higher number of participants.

IBM did not officially react to our protest so far. However, they did shut down parts of their Business Centre to visitors (or really, protesters). A number of participants managed to crash an IBM staff meeting during the afternoon - where they were immediately asked to leave and to "protest outside". Instead, they demanded to speak to Management. But the staff meeting, which seemed to be about the new IBM website functionalities, was called to an end.

The media coverage for this event was impressive. The news about the protest was covered by blogs, radio and TV stations, newspapers and podcasts in numerous countries. Italy'snational TV station highlighted the event in the evening news during 5 minutes, showing screenshots from Second Life and its almost 2’000 protesters.

More information about this historical protest will come in the next days."